


The Aftermath

by arrowsshootyouforwards



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Missing Scene, Set before end of movie, from battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26403715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrowsshootyouforwards/pseuds/arrowsshootyouforwards
Summary: Nicky is angry at Booker for selling them out. Angry that he would try to decide for them all that they had lived long enough and it should all end. Nicky rarely lets his anger show, but this time, it's too much and he shows Booker exactly how he feels before he and Joe go about cleaning themselves up from the fightMissing scene from the Old Guard after they escape Merrick's lab and before they evict Booker.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 5
Kudos: 144





	The Aftermath

_“As is yours.”_

Nicky’s earlier words echo through his head as he watched Nile’s body put itself back together after the jump. He and Booker pulled the door from the wrecked car and helped her to her feet, retrieving Andy’s weapon from Merick’s neck and shoulder. “Faster than the elevator,” Joe said, looking at the height from which their newest comrade fell as she groaned.

“It’s OK Nile,” Nicky told her and Booker pulled her arm around his shoulder as she got up from the car and Andy joined them. Quickly, they made their exit in the car Copley left for them before anyone could arrive to see them. Someone will erase the damning security footage at some point, Copley may have already been working on that, but all Nicky can do is rest his head against the window, hoping he doesn’t leave a mark in blood that might attract any unwanted attention from other road users.

Andy drove in silence, none of them spoke. They drove to one of their safe houses on the outskirts of a Northern London borough. They hadn’t been here in a while, Nicky noted, looking up at the old house as they head inside. Andy let them in, going straight to run the water until it came clear. Nicky felt Joe pass him on his right and heard Nile’s intake of breath at the nicer than expected interior. Then he heard his boots.

Nicky’s anger which had been simmering under the surface for the past few hours bubbled over as he whirled around, catching Booker in the face with a ferocious right hook, knocking him back into the wall, head first and shattering his nose, judging by the way blood began pouring out of it.

“Nicky,” Andy pushed him back, restraining him, before he could advance on the _traditore_ again. Joe stepped in front of Booker, his back to Nicky, holding a hand to the Frenchman’s chest, preventing him from advancing back, but he made no move to do so. Nicky’s breathing grew heavier as his rage at Booker’s actions resurfaced.

“Why all of us?” He shouted. “Just because you are fed up of immortality, what gives you the right to make that choice for me? Or for Joe? Or for Andy? Or Nile? Or any of us?” He gestured wildly with his arms as he shouted. Lowering his voice, he glared at Booker, “Why must you drag us all down with you?” He spat.

“I said I was sorry, I didn’t think he’d detain us, I just want this to end, it’s torture for me! You and Joe have each other, I have no one!” Booker shouts back the same excuse he used in the lab hours before. “I lost everyone I loved!”

“Like we did not also lose people we loved?” Nicky didn’t want to hear it, he scoffed, “Why not ask?” He screamed.

“Oh like you would have said ‘yes’?” Booker screamed back and Joe actually had to apply pressure to push him back this time.

“Nicky, Booker, enough,” Andy said firmly, her voice leaving no room for any argument. “We are going to take tonight, and we are going to rest,” she spoke, perfectly level through the pain she was feeling from exerting herself restraining Nicky. “Then tomorrow, we’re going to talk this through and do what needs to be done.” She turned to Booker, “change and take a walk,” she told him. Booker pushed past Joe and stormed up one flight of stairs. They heard his boots thudding heavily above them and minutes later he returned, wearing fresh clothes. He went straight out, not looking at any of them. “You good?” She asked Nicky. Nicky nodded and she let him go, leaning against the wall for support, holding her side. “Nile give me a hand upstairs, I’ll show you were the clean clothes are and we’ll go get something for us all to eat,” she said.

Nile hurried over, pulling Andy’s arm around her shoulder and following her instructions up the same stairs Booker had gone up previously. “You’re hurt, I’ll go for food,” she told Andy as she helped her climb the stairs.

Joe and Nicky remained where they were until the two women were out of view and earshot. Nicky ran his hands through his hair, pulling a face at the feeling of the crusted blood matting his hair together. Across the room, Joe sighs, rolling his neck, revelling at the bones cracking. He wanted nothing more than to sink into the sofa beside him, but he knew Andy would kill him if he got blood on anything. She liked this safe house, they all did, so were always careful not to leave any stains. He finally looked at Nicky. His Nicoló. His Heart.

Nicky’s fingers were still in his bloodied hair, his eyes closed as he attempted to calculate exactly what could have been going through Booker’s mind when he decided to betray his family. Joe moved silently, “Nicoló?” He murmured, his hand hovering by his husband’s cheek. Nicky turned his cheek into his palm, turning his face to kiss Joe’s palm before sighing, letting his body deflate.

“Are you alright Yusef?” Nicky asked, barely a whisper.

“I’m fine, my heart, come let’s get cleaned up,” he said, using his other hand to raise Nicky’s hand – the one he had punched Booker with – to his lips and kiss his already healed knuckles. Joe led Nicky through the kitchen and up the other set of stairs to their room. It was rare they ever found safe houses large enough for everyone to have their own space so when they had found this one, Andy had made sure they were able to keep it. He and Nicky’s room was the same as they had left it years before, if freshly dusted. Andy had set up an account with a cleaning service to have it cleaned once a month when they were not using it. She would call them in the morning, let them know not to come until they had left, if they were sticking around at all. Joe and certainly Nicky didn’t feel like sticking around in London after the day they had just had, though they couldn’t and wouldn’t speak for the others. That is what had caused the trouble in the first place.

Joe dropped his hand and began running the faucets in the clawfoot tub until the water ran clear and he swilled the water around the edges of the tub before plugging the bottom and adding scents and bubbles. Next he went over to the shower stall and set that running before returning to Nicky, perched on the lid of the toilet seat, his hands once again in his hair.

Nicky was normally good at keeping his temper, neither of them had much of a temper. They’d both spent centuries training themselves to keep their cool. They only let their anger show in that manner if they wanted to. Joe knelt before him, placing his hands on his husband’s shoulders he brought their foreheads together. “I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to hurt like he let them hurt you,” Nicky mumbled to Joe, barely audible.

“It’s alright. We’re alright. I’m alright,” Joe assured him.

“I shouldn’t have done it like that,” Nicky sighed. “You shouldn’t have held him back.”

“Two immortals fighting to the death? Sounds like a boring fight mi amore.” Joe’s hands moved from Nicky’s shoulders to cup the back of his neck.

“I tried to find the words, to spar verbally, but they wouldn’t come to my lips. They rested in my fist, demanded a physical fight.”

“It was a very impressive hit,” Joe smiled, he’d seen Nicky throw thousands of punches in the billions of fights they’ve fought. And his one today easily reached Joe’s top ten list. “But I think we’ve all done enough fighting for one day My Heart. Your anger is understandable. Reasonable even. But let’s calm now.” Nicky nodded, his fingers slid from the back of his blood crusted head, down to pull at the hem of Joe’s shirt. “Ah, ah, tonight, I take care of you,” Joe told him.

They’ve had their share of truly bloody battles over the millennium, starting with the very Crusade where they met and after each they fought together, they had retired to a bath house or in better times their home to take care of each other. Nicky normally gets there first, he’s the one to lead, stripping Joe and cleaning the blood from his skin in a gentle way as the cuts and bruises heal under his fingertips. But tonight, Joe wants his turn to go first. He pulls Nicky’s bullet hole ridden t-shirt from his body, dropping it beside them. He traces his hands over Nicky’s firm and toned chest, joining the points the holes had exposed like a dot-to-dot puzzle as he made his way to Nicky’s pants. Opening the buttons, Joe got to his feet, tugging Nicky to stand with him, pushing his clothes from his body. Nicky stepped out of his clothes and shoes, allowing Joe to lead him over to the shower stall which was filled with steam. Joe adjusted the temperature and got Nicky to sit on the bench in the stall. Nicky breathed in the steam, relaxing against the tile behind him.

Joe dug around under the sink for a cloth and bath soaps, turned off the faucets leaving the bath steaming he stripped his own clothes before joining Nicky in the stall. He wet the cloth under the spray of the shower and poured some of the soap onto it. He lifted Nicky’s punching arm and took care as he cleaned away the dried-on blood. Moving across his chest, cleaning the stains there Joe knelt before his husband and cleaned his other arm. He rinsed the cloth, waiting until it squeezed clear and added more soap, it was a scented one. Japanese Cherry Blossom, it reminded him of a trip he and Nicky had taken there to take part in Hanami, viewing the cherry blossoms there. That had been a nice trip, Joe remembered as he cleaned Nicky’s legs. He would love to go back and view again sometime. Sometime soon even. But the season was passed and wouldn’t come around again until next year. It would have to wait.

Once his front was clean, he wordlessly shifted Nicky so he could clean his back before moving onto his matted hair. Wetting the cloth again he cleaned off the blood as it ran down the drain, mingling with the water, staining it pink. Nicky’s forehead rested on his shoulder as he cleaned the back of his head. Letting him know he was finished with a kiss to his head, Joe quickly cleaned off the remaining blood from his own body and hair and shut off the shower.

Standing in the stall, Nicky lowered his lips to Joe’s. “Thank you, mi amore,” he whispered softly. “Now it’s my turn to hold you,” he said, leading Joe over to the still hot bath, lowering himself into the water. The water smelled sweet and spicy as a medley of scents encompassed his senses. Opening his legs, he created space for Joe to join him. Joe did climb in, but sat across from Nicky, folding his legs between Nicky’s. Nicky raised an eyebrow.

“Soon,” Joe promised, scooting closer, pulling Nicky’s face to his, reconnecting their lips. They withdrew, resting foreheads against each other once again. “I dread to think I may never have looked into your eyes like this again,” Joe murmured.

“You will Yusef, for all eternity should you wish it,” Nicky told him.

“I do wish it, Nicoló.”

“Then they are yours.” Nicky brought their lips back together. They stayed like that, enjoying each other’s company, just refamiliarizing themselves with their husband’s lips, eyes, bodies.

Once the water was cooled, they rose from the tub and patted each other dry with old, rough but clean towels and dressed in clothes they could run in if they needed to. In their room, Nile had left them some take out on the desk facing out the window. The heavy curtains remained drawn, blocking out all light from the room as they ate, sitting on the rug, leaning against the wall, not wanting to spill on their bed.

Nicky felt his eyes grow heavy as he finished his meal. Joe had already finished and was doing one of his favourite things, watching Nicky. Nicky set his empty take-out box aside, “come to bed?” He asked softly in Italian. Joe rose with him, watching as Nicky settled by the wall before tucking himself beneath Nicky’s chin. Nicky buried his nose in Joe’s curls and fell asleep inhaling the comforting scent that was all his Yusef.

The discussions were taken away from the safe house the next day. Nile had suggested they go somewhere weapon free, so nobody was tempted to shoot anyone else. Andy had told her they were always carrying, even if it didn’t look like it, it was for their own safety, but she admitted she would prefer they didn’t make bullet holes in this safehouse. They went to a pub on the bank of the Thames. After establishing that Booker needed some kind of repercussions for selling them out, he was asked to leave them to decide his fate, though part of him already knew what it would be.

Andy delivered the news and he watched his family leave him to his solitude, it was nothing less than he deserved. He knew that, he just wished he could have let them know how much he regretted involving them.

Andy, Nile, Joe and Nicky returned to Copley’s car and got in. Andy took her position in the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Where’re we going?” Nile asked from the back seat beside Nicky.

“I am open to suggestions, but I need a break,” Andy told them. Her body needed time to heal, time she wasn’t used to giving it. Beside her Joe had made eye contact with Nicky in the back seat, silently communicating with him, raising an eyebrow he reminded Nicky of their conversation from the lab, before the other’s were brought to join them. Nicky, understanding smiled at the corners of his mouth, nodding his head once.

Joe spoke: “How about Malta?”

The group shared an approving look, “Malta it is,” Andy nodded, pulling out into traffic and driving off.


End file.
